Re: pluralization idea that keeps bugging me
On 2008-Jan-26, at 9:58 am, Larry Wall wrote:
My first thought is that this is such a common idiom that we ought
to have some syntactic sugar for it:
say Received $m message\s.
I've always wanted a magic-S (and I don't think the anglocentrism
matters, because Perl is already pretty anglocentric -- more so than
plural S's, which apply to some other languages anyway).
Rather than extra syntax to specify alternatives, I wonder about
having \s work with arrays (which also provides a way to deal with
duals, for example):
say Received $_ {ox oxen oxes}\s for 1, 2, 77;
Received 1 ox
Received 2 oxen
Received 77 oxes
It might even be sophisticated enough to guess whether it should add
es or just s, but anything beyond that probably belongs in a module.
use Locale::Lingua::EN;
say There was\s {3} ox\s;# There were 3 oxen
use Locale::Lingua::Romana::Perligata;
say {3} bos\s erat\s;# 3 boves erant
Although calling it \s loses its impact in other languages But
I think the underlying idea to seize on is a way to grab interpolated
values so that there's a nice way to do tricks like that. Preferably
in a way that doesn't look symmetrical so you can point it before or
behind.
say I've got $bid dollar\s, do I hear {$ + 1}?
Or using $ instead of \s:
say I'm bid $d dollar$ for @this[]$ $o @ox[]$
...except that I'm not crazy about calling it $. (If that would
even work.) But something like that. Perhaps strings should build an
array of their interpolations?
say $a $b $c, this string contains [EMAIL PROTECTED] interpolations
(Then again, maybe there's a time to break down and use (s)printf.)
-David
Re: pluralization idea that keeps bugging me
* David Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [080131 08:48]:
I've always wanted a magic-S (and I don't think the anglocentrism
matters, because Perl is already pretty anglocentric -- more so than
plural S's, which apply to some other languages anyway).
In the good old days all computer OSes were anglo-centric. They are
not like that anymore. But Perl still is.
use Locale::Lingua::EN;
say There was\s {3} ox\s;# There were 3 oxen
use Locale::Lingua::Romana::Perligata;
say {3} bos\s erat\s;# 3 boves erant
Although calling it \s loses its impact in other languages But
I think the underlying idea to seize on is a way to grab interpolated
values so that there's a nice way to do tricks like that. Preferably
in a way that doesn't look symmetrical so you can point it before or
behind.
As I suggested in a previous mail, we can do it by making say/print
a bit smarter. Instead of interpolating before they are called,
we let them interpolate themselves, and optionally translate.
say I've got $bid dollar\s, do I hear {$ + 1}?
pre-parse standard call to (s)print(f)/say from
say I've got $bid dollar, do I hear , $bid+1, ?
into
print I've got \Ibid\E dollar, do I hear \I__ANON1__\E?\n,
bid = $bid, __ANON1 = $bid+1, __LINE = __LINE__;
(introducting \I \E as interpolation indicators)
Isn't the (usual, existing) translation syntax a lot simpler than
you suggest?
(the rewrite will take place as first step within the print/say.
Translations must be implemented in the output layers, because only there
we know enough about character-set and end-user. Within the program,
you do not want to be bothered with translated strings)
The default interpolation implementation for print() can be very simple.
However, now we can also make translation modules which use external
tables or databases to do the optional intelligent work.
I do not think that your
use Locale::Lingua::Romana::Perligata;
is usable, because the translation (in general) adapts to the language
of the user of the module, not the likings of the author. A more
general use is:
setlocale('lat')
open OUT, :language('lat'):encoding('latin1'), $f
--
MarkOv
Mark Overmeer MScMARKOV Solutions
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://Mark.Overmeer.net http://solutions.overmeer.net
Re: pluralization idea that keeps bugging me
On 2008-Jan-31, at 2:38 am, Mark Overmeer wrote:
* David Green ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [080131 08:48]:
I've always wanted a magic-S (and I don't think the anglocentrism
matters
In the good old days all computer OSes were anglo-centric. They are
not like that anymore. But Perl still is.
Well, they provide ways to localise text, which is good; and a lot of
applications take advantage of it, which is better. Most programming
languages themselves are still English though, or at least their
vocabulary is based on English and English-like words. (Except for
the ones that aren't.) Fortunately, since Perl6 is ultimately
mutable, it should be reasonably straightforward to translate it all
so that you could start programs with use Dutch or use Japanese.
use Lingua::FR;
mes @valeurs=(1,2,3);
dis $_ pour @valeurs;#pardon my French
Of course, while some languages might need only to translate all the
function and variable names, others would arguably want to rearrange
the grammar and syntax too, so reasonably straightforward is a
relative term
The brute force way would be to redefine every function with a new
name for the new language; but perhaps what we really want is a more
elegant way to do that:
sub foo :trans(fr=fue, de=fu) {...}
I do not think that your use Locale::Lingua::Romana::Perligata;
is usable, because the translation (in general) adapts to the language
of the user of the module, not the likings of the author.
That depends on the circumstances; the author(s) still have to provide
translations in the first place. I wasn't thinking of ways to handle
multiple languages, just ways to let the author more easily use his
own language (which is what the majority of perl programs do, since
most of them are written for private use).
As I suggested in a previous mail, we can do it by making say/print
a bit smarter. Instead of interpolating before they are called,
we let them interpolate themselves, and optionally translate.
I really like the idea of having text lazily interpolate/translate.
And in P6, it will be possible to override quoting and concatenating
so that the code doesn't even have to look any different. Being able
to refer to the interpolated values is a bit of a different matter, I
think; although I guess the main reason for wanting to do so is
translating (including singular-to-plural translations).
Flexible interpolation is good because it makes text look more
natural, as opposed to a printf-like separation of parts. On the
other hand, the more natural the text looks in one language, the more
work it can be to translate it automatically. The magic-S is more of
a shortcut when you're not doing real translations at all.
-David
